


got my contact high (summertime nights)

by fletcherenns



Series: oh, so much déjà vu [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gansey Has Two Hands, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Recreational Drug Use, Shotgunning, cabeswater gansey introspection, demisexual henry cheng, devil's lettuce, it's not a run on sentence if you use enough commas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29625753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fletcherenns/pseuds/fletcherenns
Summary: When Gansey stumbles back to the hotel room, thoroughly worn down  ㅡ he is a forest, he is a ley line condensed in the shape of a boy, he is something not entirely human trapped in human conventions ㅡ  Henry and Blue have procured weed somehow, and more puzzlingly manage to avoid the smoke detectors. He wrinkles his nose, because it kind of smells awful, and he's tired, and does this count as an allergen because they're indoors this time and he hasn't quite been tested for this, you know.or, gansey being allergic to self-examination but doing it anyways through a thinly veiled narrative excuse
Relationships: Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III, Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent
Series: oh, so much déjà vu [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2176710
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	got my contact high (summertime nights)

**Author's Note:**

> slight tw for past (accidental?) self-harm mentioned.  
> title is from the song "your love (deja vu)" by glass animals.  
>  **you, smart:** gansey would never do a marijuana and if he did he would die  
>  **me, unhinged:** [points to large billboard labelled I Can Do What I Want] technically he isn’t gansey anymore and cabeswater rebuilt him with secondhand information . look now we're both sad

They keep it relatively classy up until Gansey's post-18th birthday, when he's forcibly invited to D.C. They're attached like a stack of wet paper; so they are _all_ invited to D.C, really. Helen says something politely snide about pack hyenas, but Henry sings lament ( _you_ could _separate us but then we'd be all sad and aestheticless, Blue-don’t-look-at-me-like-that, you know I’m right. I am sure Helen understands the value of a good colour palette!_ ) until she agrees to let Gansey free from the Gothel’s tower of his family home. 

Blue refuses to go to a Republican party on principle; Henry offers to pop his head in but agrees. ( _Ganseyboy, I treasure you deeply but I refuse to be in a Get Out sequel, you understand._ ) Gansey wants to be there the least, but he stomachs it as an unspoken apology to his mother for dying during her political events, twice. The Ganseys are nothing if not polite and considerate. She eyes him like a hawk throughout, though it is perhaps Helen’s knowing looks that are more damning. 

When Gansey stumbles back to the hotel room, thoroughly worn down - he is a forest, he is a ley line condensed in the shape of a boy, he is something not entirely human trapped in human conventions - Henry and Blue have procured weed somehow, and even more puzzlingly manage to avoid the smoke detectors. He wrinkles his nose, because it kind of smells awful, and he's tired, and does this count as an allergen because they're indoors this time and he hasn't quite been tested for this, you know. 

“You sound like someone who needs to smoke,” Henry tells him, not unkindly. He pats the space next to them pointedly until Gansey half-sits on the bed, dress shoes firmly on the floor. Blue wrinkles her nose at a cologne that most certainly contains two first names in its label, but Henry does not mind as he loosens Gansey’s tie. This specific knot is one of Helen’s personal death-traps, and he dislikes anyone removing a tie without undoing the knot first. “I do not think it’s even possible to be allergic to weed.”

"I would argue that it's possible to be allergic to _anything_." He debates bringing up sun allergies and their relevance to vampirical myth, but decides against it, too afraid of Blue’s opinions on Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed and wealthy monarch practices in general.

Blue shrugs, and jabs at the air in his direction. “If you were, you’d have had a reaction in Fox Way alone. That entire place is a hotbox. I don’t know why they allow children in there at all.”

“Maybe it’s fire rules,” Gansey finds his mouth saying. “If you stay low to the ground, you’ll minimise smoke inhalation.” Henry laughs once, and his breath is distractingly warm against the side of his neck. Blue tuts as she beckons him close, blowing smoke into his face before she presses her lips to his, open-mouthed. It’s lovely to have her there, balanced precariously on her knees in a bed that’s a little too soft to make it easy. She puts the cigar tip to his lips, and her eyes are mirthful and warm and distracting. 

"Inhale," Henry reminds him cheerfully, and he hesitantly does. 

He chokes.

Because of course he does, and of course he manages to end up on the floor with his sputtering, red in the face and coughing. Blue’s laughter is mocking birdsong, and Henry may as well be laughing, because Gansey _knows_ he’s smirking even as he pats his back in solidarity. “Our prince is sheltered,” Cheng reminds her, teasing, but his hand is gentle along his shoulder. Mildly, the aforementioned prince notes that his bespoke Italian suit jacket is being crushed under him, and he finds that he does not particularly care. The part of him that has been remade with Adam Parrish claws at him, but the part of him that’s been remade with Lynch’s savage humor reminds him that he can just order another one. Oh, how grateful he is for the wisdom of now knowing to keep his mouth closed.

Gansey kicks his shoes off and rejoins them, accepting the water bottle offered to him as he eyes Blue cautiously, but she’s smiling too hard to mock him. Distantly, he’s struck by the memory of seeing her just like this, in the same messy hair and teddy bear-printed camisole, and he thinks he may already have been here before. Or that he is about to be trapped here in a time anomaly, where her natural hair defies gravity in an infinite loop, unmoving, moored, unceasing. Then Henry’s long fingers are cool and grounding against his forearm when he asks, “Go again?”

He nods, and this time, Blue takes a drag before she leans in too close and not close enough. It's reminiscent of nights watching the twinkle of the Henrietta skyline, of the months where her kiss' death had not yet come to pass. Like they're just pretending again. Her lips hover over his, not touching, and she gently coaxes his mouth further open with a gentle fingertip tapping at his jaw. This inhale is easier, softer, the proximity of her lips a surer presence than any drug.  
  
Gansey’s not sure if he’s supposed to hold his breath or not, and it’s awkward to ask, and he really wouldn’t want to ruin the moment, especially not if Henry and Blue are already buzzed. Is that the term? Should he have paid more attention to Kavinsky’s ramblings? Cheng observes him with a sharp look, taking a slow drag himself, right from the source. He’s still often uncomfortable with the physicalities, and neither of them will press the topic - whether it’s soon or never. He offers the instrument to Gansey again, loosely balanced in question. He shakes his head, still uncertain, and Henry only shrugs as Jane snatches it back. 

Blue flicks at the back of his hand, as if she’s getting rid of an insect - goodness, was there an insect there? Did he forget to check? “Stay,” she warns him, turning over his palm to trace the life-line edge to edge. “We’re here, Gansey. Nowhere else.” Gansey suspects that his shudder has nothing to do with any mind-altering substances and everything to do with her. She inhales again, sugar-sweet and close, and this time her lips only hover for a moment before she meets him in the middle. The press of her is insistent, treading the line of overbearing.

Henry is usually polite enough to divert his attention whenever they kiss, either for sake of their comfort or his own. Working theory says that his plentiful Instagram notifications have a special Robo-bee induced setting to only zing when he needs to subtly look away. This time, though, he feels Cheng's casually non-casual gaze on him, and he's a little embarrassed to admit how quickly it makes his ears go red. It's easy to forget her kiss had any ulterior purpose at all, really, with Henry so close, so carefully avoidant of any accidental touches. Blue taps his cheek to remind him to inhale, so he does, but there's not much left between them and that doesn't matter either. 

If he thinks carefully, he can still see it at the edge of his mind. Somewhere on the ley line, Gansey is dying and dying again and being reborn and being reborn again. 

They trade like that - Blue and Henry taking it directly, Gansey taking it second-hand. Everything is pleasantly cloudy; his limbs are heavier than they were and leaning against the headboard is a supremely alluring option. His chest is warm, so he reaches up to undo the tight collar and is surprised to find that the first few buttons are already opened. His fingertips stay where they are, cool against his flushed skin. Henry and Blue are apparently having a conversation, so he brings himself down a few channels until he catches the end of a muttered, “-shit quality.”

Henry points out something being innovative, but he tunes it out again, mindlessly tracing his fingertips up old routes. It’s easy to replicate the pattern, pad of the index to the mole on his cheekbone, little finger to the tip of his Cupid’s bow. Hook, embed, drag. Paranoid clawing with no regard for the results.

Short nails aren’t too dangerous, but repetition, and desperate strength, had been key. The crawling feeling of insects sinks into his skin again, but he presses down (only the pads, no nails, no nails, nothing broken because _unsightly gashes_ do not look well on a capital-G Gansey, _we’ve told you this many times, Richard_ ) and it wanes. His doctor had had to implement a no-nails rule, one that still sticks when Richard Sr appraises him on any visits. The scars didn’t last long - he remembers when they were stark, harsher so against his tanned skin, but they’re barely visible now. 

Technically, they always are, because time is a place, and if a younger Gansey lives through the awkward sting of antiseptic swabs and scabbing, then so does he. He is himself, he is every version of himself, he is searching for a ley and he has been remade with it and he has been buried in it. 

He’s been staring at the edge of the horrendously ugly watercolor in the hotel room, and he only notices it now as he blinks his vision back into focus. Blue is peering at him with something of a frown, taking hold of one of his hands. Henry’s still-frigid fingers hold his other wrist in a two-handed grip, pulling away Gansey’s hand from the vicinity of his eyeball.

“Richard-man,” he says sternly. "What's that we said about staying on this astral plane?" 

He lets his hand lax, inexplicably embarrassed. Self-consciousness is something that's heavily minimized by the _Cabeswater_ -ness of his existence (it is hard to be afraid in a moment when he can see decades and centuries and eons stretched around him). "I'm sorry," he says, and he does not have to bother being professionally polite about it. Gansey, just Gansey. That’s all there is.

All of them know he doesn't need to apologize, but they also know he is Richard Campbell Gansey (thrice) and courtesies are a given. Blue holds his hand firm, her small fingers tight and comforting. He can't see the cigar anymore, but the sensation of her skin is more than enough to make everything the good side of floaty again. Henry is still holding his wrist, and pulls it into his own lap, covering Gansey’s hand with his larger ones. Cupping them, like they’re back in an Aglionby pit and a little too close but that doesn’t matter at all because everything is just _right_.They're three odd people that manage equilibrium surprisingly easy. Gansey runs hot, Blue likes warmth but hates being sweaty, and Henry is almost always cool to the touch. 

Gansey can’t quite remember where his feet are, or where the ground is, but the unchanging coolness of Henry’s smooth hands is all too heavy. He hopes Cheng isn’t too cold - they can call for extra blankets, go for the thermostat, buy a brand new coat and have it hand-delivered in. Whichever option is likely to create the least strife. He shudders to recall one of their earlier stops. He had offered to upgrade their living conditions from a local bed-and-breakfast to an also-local five star hotel. One person had jumped at the option of hot water, but Blue had had to go outside in the snow to stop herself from violently assaulting Gansey.  
  


Henry is still looking.

The unceasing nature of the eye contact is not unusual, but it feels... different. Henry smiles tightly, in that way he does when he cannot quite put himself into words. He'd admitted it on a 3 A.M run through Massachusetts, _my native language is thought and there is no Rosetta's stone for those translations._ Blue had declared that their next goal should be making exactly that, should they manage to survive Cheng's terrible driving.

"Tomorrow," he murmurs, "I may take you two up on that offer of a kiss." 

**Author's Note:**

> not very pleased with this, but i had to get it off my mind. started as something else entirely & u can kinda tell lol. slightly inspired by an ancient sarchengsey fic that i'll link if i find :)


End file.
